Suspect Had Record And Valid License

June 04, 1986|By Joseph Sjostrom.

Despite a string of 16 convictions and two license suspensions for traffic violations since 1976, the 27-year-old man charged with reckless homicide in the deaths of two Carol Stream women in a two-car crash last summer was driving on a valid license, records of the Illinois secretary of state`s office show.

Five of those violations involved alcohol-related offenses. But because the sentences in some cases were periods of ``supervision`` rather than jail terms, they could not be used as cause for further license suspensions, according to a spokesman for the secretary of state`s office.

The suspect, Timothy B. Sullivan of Hanover Park, was charged by Carol Stream police with drunken driving after his car collided with another on Gary Avenue near Lies Road on Aug. 22, killing Laura Johnson, 22, and her friend Dina Bell, 21. The women were returning home from a friend`s house.

Two months later, the Du Page County state`s attorney persuaded a grand jury to indict Sullivan for reckless homicide, a felony that carries a maximum prison sentence of three years. The state`s attorney has dropped the drunken- driving charge in favor of prosecuting the felony.

If convicted, Sullivan could be sentenced to 1 to 3 years in prison, probation or work release, said Brian Telander a Du Page County assistant state`s attorney. On a 12-month sentence, he could be out of prison in three months if he earned maximum credit for good behavior, according to state corrections officials.

The apparent leniency with Sullivan during the last 10 years has angered the mothers of the two victims.

``Why was he allowed to be on the road driving?`` asked Leah Johnson, mother of Laura Johnson. ``Look what he did. He wiped out two beautiful young women.``

``We`re planning to get kids in the neighborhood to pass petitions asking the court to sentence him to more than 1 to 3 years in jail,`` said Diane Bell, Dina Bell`s mother. ``We thought he could get 1 to 3 years for each death. Now we find out he could be out of jail in 3 or 6 months. Three months for two lives? That`s ludicrous.``

A sample of Sullivan`s blood taken at the Glendale Heights Hospital after the accident showed an alcohol content of 0.108 percent when tested at a state laboratory. A driver is legally drunk in Illinois with a count of 0.1 percent. Sullivan`s attorney disputes some of the allegations by police in the case, however, and charges that blood tests on Johnson, who had been driving the girls` car, indicate she was approaching the legal definition of drunkenness when the accident occurred.

And despite Sullivan`s list of past offenses, an examination of his driving record and the court files from his previous traffic cases does not indicate that judges or prosecutors overstepped their discretion in letting him keep his license. In addition, the secretary of state`s office did take advantage of its only two opportunities to suspend Sullivan`s license before the accident that killed Johnson and Bell.

According to records of the secretary of state`s office, Sullivan was convicted seven times for speeding, five times for liquor-related offenses, twice for driver-license infractions and twice for other moving violations during a period from July, 1976, through September, 1984.

Any three moving violations that meet certain criteria in a 12-month period trigger an automatic suspension of a person`s driver`s license, with the length of the suspension dependent on the seriousness of the offenses, according to a secretary of state`s spokesman. Sullivan never accumulated enough tickets meeting the criteria to trigger such a suspension, although his license was suspended twice, once for driving without a valid license in 1979 and again the same year for driving while his license was suspended, state records show.

Between October, 1978, and September, 1979, Sullivan received three speeding tickets and the two driver`s license violations. However, the license violations were used for two suspensions and could not be counted for imposition of other suspensions, the secretary of state`s spokesman said.

And a Sept. 14 speeding ticket also could not be counted, the spokesman said, because Sullivan failed to appear in court and was convicted as a result of bond forfeiture rather than through adjudication of the evidence.

In 1983, he was convicted twice for transportation of open liquor, but those were not grounds for license suspension in 1983.

Similarly, a sentence of ``supervision`` cannot be used by the secretary of state to trigger a license suspension. Supervision, according to legal authorities, is a sentencing alternative that allows a judge to purge a conviction from a defendant`s record.